Leveraging Your Fans’ Friends on Facebook

A well marketed band will have various media, such as Facebook or mailing lists, through which it can promote its upcoming shows, album releases, or simply create interaction with fans. What makes Facebook stand out as such a great vehicle for promotion is the social aspect. After all, word of mouth via referrals from friends is arguably the greatest form of promotion. Think about how many of the artists you listen to were introduced through friends. The article below shows the opportunity Facebook yields to not only leverage your fan base, but to leverage their friend base as well. You can probably think of a brand that has effectively advertised to you as a friend of one of their fans on Facebook. This function of Facebook ads allows you to have a personal recommendation included in the ads you display, making your message not only trustworthy, but "cool."

Credit: Clyde Smith

A recent comScore whitepaper, The Power of Like, revealed a number of interesting data points related to Facebook marketing including the amount of time spent on Facebook sections. (click on image to enlarge) Fast Company's Gregory Ferenstein recently discussed the even more powerful insight that focusing on friends of fans is a relatively unexplored way to spread one's brand.The conclusion: To spread your band or brand on Facebook, don't just target your fans, target their friends.

"The Power of Like" is a free comScore whitepaper designed to help market their Social Essentials service for measuring social marketing efforts. It focuses on reaching and influencing fans and is well worth a look for anyone doing marketing on Facebook or related social networks.